Although the
torture of detainees is very different from the treatment and supervision of
people who have sexually abused, some points are worth noting as we consider
the effects of our actions on our clients and society. CIA detainees and sexual
offenders are often more vulnerable populations than they appear. It can be
easy to feel an urgent need to use whatever means are necessary to reduce risks
as quickly as possible. It can be easy for professionals to lose sight of just
how much power they hold over the people in their charge. Finally, it can be
easy to believe that one is not capable of causing harm to people in our care
or custody. As one extreme example, CIA psychologist Kirk M. Hubbard stated in
a journal article titled Psychologists and interrogations: What’s
torture got to do with it?:

Constanzo (et al.) argue that ‘psychologists should not be involved
in interrogations that make use of torture or other forms of cruel, inhumane, or
degrading treatment’ . . . Their statement is ironic for torture is illegal in
the United States. But even more importantly, it seems to come from and apply
to a world that no longer exists. . . . We no
longer live in a world where people agree on what is ethical or even
acceptable, and where concern for other humans transcends familial ties.

This statement does
indeed contain ironies (e.g., it seems that no one is disputing that torture
took place outside the US, or the belief that whatever happened could not be
torture because that would be illegal, or that because it took place outside
the US it was somehow less unethical). This
statement also illustrates how people in the helping professions can find or imagine
exceptions to standards of professional conduct (e.g., behavior that would be
unethical under other circumstances is ethical when the world is changing and
we believe that old rules don’t apply). Certainly, the behavior of nations in
wartime is beyond the scope of this blog and the expertise of this author.
However, professionals at the intersection of mental health and the law will
want to consider factors that influence our understanding of ethical conduct,
as well as how these same factors may appear to change over time. Lost in the
current media discussion are other discussions about the involvement of mental
health professionals in interrogations (e.g., Chaffin, 2010).

When
I first worked with detainees at Guantanamo Bay, I was troubled by a peculiar
and unsettling awareness . . . Here I was, focusing on torture and cruel,
inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners and yet, these were the very men
who were the “enemy.” As a career Army officer, I pledged to protect our nation
against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As a physician, I pledged to care
for all who were hurting and needed help. Facing some detainees who were
tortured because they were our enemies, sometimes with the aid of military
physicians, I felt I had entered a domain in which the old paradigms ceased to
apply. Perhaps that is one of the fundamental problems with Guantanamo. . . . I
have always believed that doctors are champions of human rights, no matter what
role or assignment we accept. After all, every society endows their doctors and
healers with special trust and confidence. We symbolically wear the white coat
at all times, even as psychiatric experts for the prosecution or in military
uniform.

What does this
have to do with the treatment of sexual violence?

In 2010, the
late psychiatrist Bill Glaser wrote (among other things) that in its current
state, sex
offender treatment is punishment and that professionals should not kid
themselves about this. Jill Levenson and
I wrote a reply
in which we argued that this is simply not the case, and that licensed professionals
are bound by ethical codes that make it unlikely for treatment to be entirely punitive.
Just the same, Glaser’s point was well-taken, in that our clients don’t always
view their treatment to be as helpful as their therapists do (Beech and Fordham,
1997), even though consumer-satisfaction surveys of sex offenders have
often produced positive results (e.g., Levenson,
Prescott, & Jumper, 2013).

In 2011, Steve
Sawyer and I published an article on boundaries and ethics
in sex offender treatment. We observed that:

The
licensed therapist treating sexual offenders has an ethical responsibility to the
client, a legal
responsibility
to the court, and an ethical/moral responsibility to the community.
Specifically, the therapist’s primary responsibility to the client’s welfare is
checked in part by the standard of practice to share information with
county/state corrections and/or the community as required by law or by
contractual obligations or as needed to protect the community. This is done
with informed consent from the client or as needed by law. Within these limits
of confidentiality, however, the therapist’s focus is on the sexual offender
client. This situation recognizes that the client is best served—and the public
is best served—when the therapist and the client develop a therapist–client
relationship that is separate from the sexual offender’s relationship with the
probation officer and the court.

This seems clear
enough; professionals in our field are almost always involved in balancing the
rights and welfare of others and develop specific practice skills for doing so.
Yet the recent events involving large agencies and organizations (the APA, CIA,
etc.) should still make us wonder if there aren’t other concerns to bear in
mind. In what ways might we go wrong? What should we look out for in order to
prevent harm to clients? How can we maintain the highest level of professional
conduct? Anecdotally, it seems to the
author that the most common forms of grievances and ethics complaints (when
they occur) are in the areas of misuse of evaluation measures, and coercive
treatment experiences.

Readers may be
aware of an ongoing class-action suit in Minnesota. After 20 years of
operation, only three people of a current census of over 700 have ever received
provisional discharges (one within the past few days), raising inevitable questions
of constitutionality of the program. The federal judge in the case established
an expert panel to examine the program; their report
was published recently. This expert panel consisted of four experts, three of
whom have served as directors of civil commitment programs. After nearly a year
of reviewing the program, they released a 108-page report with 44 broad
recommendations. Within their (at times devastating) conclusions, the panel comments
on the apparent failure of many clients to advance in treatment, although they note
efforts to expand a pre-release portion of the program:

This
delay appears to be a result of a pervasive belief on the part of MSOP
administration and staff that it is not their responsibility to proactively
petition and rigorously advocate for clients to advance in phases and to CPS.
There is a shared belief of having no control because the structure of the law
and its processes have created the inability to release clients. . . Clinical
staff and clinical supervisors do not appear to be supported or encouraged to
appropriately modify the treatment offered in order to appropriately respond to
the individual and complex needs of these clients. From a clinical point of
view, this population seems to be administratively unrecognized, misunderstood,
and inappropriately served (or underserved). It was clear to the Panel that
staff who work with these clients have genuine and compassionate concern for
the wellbeing and future aspirations of their clients, in spite of feeling
unsupported in their attempts to advocate for programmatic changes.

Although there is always more to any
story, two themes emerge for purposes of this
discussion:

·One is the theme (often heard
in discussions as diverse as CIA abuses and good programs that fall on hard
times) of good, decent staff at the front lines feeling powerless and helpless
(apparently, a parallel process to the experiences of the clients in the
program).

·Another is the theme that apparently
no one was advocating for the rights or wellbeing of the clients.

In my view,
there may be two areas of focus for professionals that might be helpful and
that are often outside strict interpretations of ethical codes.

The first is advocacy
of quaternary prevention,
as described in our field by Geral
Blanchard and others. While primary, secondary, and tertiary efforts focus
on preventing sexual violence among specific populations, quaternary prevention
focuses on the prevention of harm being caused by these same efforts. Most, if
not all professionals who enter our field want to practice ethically. Yet, many providers and
treatments have caused harm under the mantle of helping others.

The second is
that all people in our field should re-visit the idea of advocacy, alluded to
recently in an article titled Where has all the psychology gone?by Gannon and Ward. Where our field
once advocated for community safety to the point of placing clients’ needs
second to community safety, it may be time to consider just how far back that
second place is. For example, the
Texas Department of State Health Services defines sexual offender treatment, in
part, as: “Sex offender treatment is different than traditional psychotherapy
in that treatment is mandated, structured, victim centered, and the treatment
provider imposes values and limits. Providers cannot remain neutral because of
the risk of colluding with, adding to, and/or contributing to the offender’s
denial” (Texas Department of State Health Services, 2012).

As an example of
context of advocacy elsewhere, consider this section of the preamble of the NASW Code of Ethics:

Social workers promote social justice
and social change with and on behalf of clients. “Clients” is used inclusively
to refer to individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
Social workers are sensitive to cultural and ethnic diversity and strive to end
discrimination, oppression, poverty, and other forms of social injustice. These
activities may be in the form of direct practice, community organizing,
supervision, consultation administration, advocacy, social and political
action, policy development and implementation, education, and research and
evaluation. Social workers seek to enhance the capacity of people to address
their own needs. Social workers also seek to promote the responsiveness of
organizations, communities, and other social institutions to individuals’ needs
and social problems.

The mission of the social work
profession is rooted in a set of core values. These core values, embraced by
social workers throughout the profession’s history, are the foundation of
social work’s unique purpose and perspective:

·service

·social justice

·dignity and worth of
the person

·importance of human
relationships

·integrity

·competence

The preamble to
the APA Code of Ethics is more
succinct: “Psychologists respect and protect civil and human
rights.”

Perhaps our next
step as professionals is to ask ourselves:

·Even though our clients provide
informed consent to our treatments, how much duress must they be under to do so
before it is not meaningful consent to treatment (e.g., “I am only consenting
because if I don’t it’s four years added to my sentence”)

·To what extent are we
advocating for both our clients’ needs as well as community safety?

·At what point is it acceptable
for a mental health professional to induce suffering, whether directly or
indirectly?

·At what point do mental health
providers in large institutions (such as civil commitment programs) have an
ethical obligation to advocate for their clients over and above what the
administration is (or is not) doing?

Monday, December 1, 2014

A conversation with Ray KnightWritten by Joan TabachnickAs part of our new prevention
series, I had the chance to speak with one of my ATSA heroes, Ray Knight about
his relatively new work and interest in bullying prevention.Most people know Ray as a passionate public speaker who once literally
presented on stage while in bed from a back injury. He is remarkable for his
ability to race through 180 slides in an hour and still leave the audience
wanting more.If felt that way in my
interview with him about this new avenue of his work.

Ray’s relatively new focus on bully
prevention grew out of his desire to apply what he has learned in aggression
research to a practical prevention project.It is also a great example of how
ATSA members are using their skills and knowledge to have an impact on
prevention in their community.

A few years ago, Ray and his wife, Judith
Sims-Knight, began working with the Foxboro School system, monitoring the
effectiveness of a Caring School Community (CSC) program in grades K through 4th.
The children are then followed up through
high school. In the K-4th
grade intervention, children are taught through cooperative learning about how
to mediate conflict and through modeling and participation about the importance
of prosocial behavior and community involvement.Both teachers and children model these
behaviors throughout the school.In
Ray’s own words, “So far, it is showing
promise in reducing aggression as those that have experienced the program
progress to higher grades.”

Ray and Judith began their work in Foxboro
as part of their work with a parent task force and then brought their
well-regarded research skills to this project.As parent-researchers, they are administering, scoring, and interpreting
for the school system an annual computerized inventory that assesses the
incidence of both perpetrating and being targeted for various forms of
bullying.If a respondent is identified
as a bully or a target, the computer program asks more detailed questions about
the circumstances and consequences of this behavior. Not only does this
identify for the school system areas for potential intervention, but it also
serves as a consistent monitor of the frequency of these behaviors so that they
can determine whether programs that they implement to reduce aggression have
any effect.

The
assessment protocol that Ray and Judith created, which is based upon the
bullying literature, serves as a metric to measure the efficacy of this
program. This protocol is, however, more than just a research tool; it also
helps the school system identify problem areas they need to address.For example, Ray described how the children
identified a problem with the band room in the high school – significant bullying
occurred there before, during, and after school. The administrators used the
computer survey to examine what was happening and take steps to solve this
problem.

In
addition to physical and verbal bullying, the research is also looking at
relational aggression such as gossiping, telling stories about someone,
exclusion behaviors such as who sits alone at lunch and who is invited to
parties, and cyber bullying, which exclusively uses the internet and social
media for bullying. In 2013, 5th, 6th, and 7th
grades had experienced varying amounts of CSC, and those experiencing the
program could be compared to students who had not experienced CSC.

The
initial data are showing that the intervention is working. Ray and Judith are
also finding that physical bullying seems to break into two components, instrumental/proactive
and reactive aggression.For those who
don’t know the terms, instrumental or proactive aggression is an aggressive act
intended to achieve a goal, while reactive aggression is retaliatory and stems
from anger or hurt. The CSC program does affect the anger and dysregulation that
contributes to reactive aggression, but is less effective for reducing
instrumental aggression.The program
also appears to reduce the active forms of relational aggression (rumors,
gossiping) but not the more passive exclusionary types of relational aggression
(not enough room for one more at the lunch table…). Direct meanness and verbal
harassment also decrease. Next year, they will be able to analyze whether CSC
also decreased sexual harassment, when the participating students reach the age
at which these questions are asked.

Overall,
the initial results show that the Caring Schools Program is working.It has had a huge impact on the community and
the teachers.What might be hardest to
measure is how it also motivates and energizes the teachers so that the
motivation and interest in the program keeps growing!You can check out the feedback that Ray and
Judy have given to the school committee and administrators, and a doctoral
dissertation that has examined the first three years of the follow-up at http://www.raymondknightphd.com/research.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Early in my career, as
a child protection social worker, I was dispatched to a school, accompanied by
a police officer.A school nurse had
reported a 12-year-old girl who disclosed sexual abuse.The nurse asked “Amy” if she would tell us
how her father would come into her room at night and hurt her.Amy quietly shook her head, “No.”It seemed Amy was recanting.Then the nurse asked, “Amy, do you remember
telling me how your dad would come into your bedroom at night and touch you
under your pajamas?”Amy nodded, “Yes,
but he didn’t hurt me.”The ‘ah-ha’
moment struck all of us - the nurse had chosen words that conflicted with Amy’s
experience.Amy added tearfully but
confidently, “I love my dad.I just
don’t want him to come into my room at night.”

In that short exchange,
Amy conveyed two important lessons: first, that professionals should let
victims tell us how they experienced sexual violations, and second, a victim
will often have an otherwise valued relationship with their abuser.This is especially true for child victims,
when more than four out of five sexually abused kids are abused by a friend or
relative.

Amy was indeed harmed,
in ways that she would need help understanding, but she didn’t experience the
kind of violence that immediately
cues kids that something bad is happening.When sexual violations occur with the recognizable violence of pain,
bodily injury, force, or threats, even young children instinctively know that
something is very wrong. Sexual abuse that
includes “violence” is easily recognizable, always harmful, and always against
the law.But when sexual violations
occur without veritable violence, many children, predisposed to trust their
abuser, often don’t recognize that they are in the midst of sexual abuse. Sometimes sexual abuse is a violation of a relationship.

One insidious
characteristic of non-violent sexual abuse is that it may be unrecognized.When people are asked why they didn’t report the
abuse, they sometimes say they felt duped, perhaps complicit, but mostly
confused.And when victims otherwise
liked their offender, they often didn’t report because they were afraid of the
uncertainty of the aftermath – for themselves and for the offender.

These are among the
findings of research conducted by psychologist Susan Clancy.Dr. Clancy interviewed hundreds of adult
survivors of child sexual abuse for her 2009 book, The Trauma Myth; The Truth About the Sexual Abuse of Children – and Its
Aftermath.Clancy reported that the
vast majority of sexual abuse of children occurs without violence, and, as a
result, adult survivors typically expressed that, as children, they felt more
confused than traumatized by the experience, especially if the abuser was
someone who they otherwise liked and trusted.Clancy suggested that children experience sexual abuse in a range of
unique ways and that professionals should be supportive in letting kids tell us
how they experienced sexual abuse, with cautious judgment. Clancy validated Amy’s experience.

In the years after
“lessons from Amy,” when I began to work with offenders, I discovered that offenders
are similarly disabled by the other side of the same coin: offenders usually admit
they knew they were taking advantage of another, but are slow to understand
sexual harm that is not accompanied by violence.Non-violent sexual violations often occur in
a blind spot for both victims and offenders, especially when abuse is within
families or between friends.

When people have an
understanding of “sex offenders” as violent rapists, predatory child molesters,
or otherwise “evil monsters,” and family or friends don’t fit that description,
children are unguarded by familiar relationships.When sexual abuse occurs in the absence of
violence, and in the presence of trust, kids may be totally disarmed.The “monster myth” and perceptions that sexual
abuse must be “violent,” may obscure both victims and offenders from
recognizing a broad range of sexual violations.

More than half of all
children who are sexually abused, are abused by an older child.Depending on the age difference between kids,
sexual contact might be against the law in one state (or province), but not in
another.In many states, sex between
teenagers might be “statutory rape,” even if it meets criteria for consent. If certain sexual behaviors are “statutorily”
proscribed, they are, by definition, illegal, but if it is truly consensual should
it be called “rape,” which in any form is understood to embody violence?

Prevention of sexual
abuse should begin by teaching kids about sexual respect, but teenagers need to
also know local “statutory rape” laws, or risk becoming a “child molester” or “rapist”
because they crossed a legal definition or jurisdictional line.People are taught from a young age that
violence is never okay, and that sexual violence is particularly
reprehensible.But in the absence of
violence, the rules for interpersonal sex are often confusing for young people.Teaching people about sexual respect goes beyond
avoidance of sexual violence, and inoculates both future victims and would-be
offenders.

In summary, sexual
violence is not a synonym for sexual abuse – it is a subset.When we describe all sexual abuse as sexual
assault or sexual violence, we risk losing recognition by victims as well as
offenders.We also lose the critical
importance of context and the actual continuum of sexual abuse.Perhaps in our zeal to convey that sexual
abuse is a serious matter, we use “sexual violence” as an attention-getting,
generic term, however, using “sexual violence” to describe all sexual violations
might exacerbate deceptive myths, and unwittingly hinder public education and
prevention efforts.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Welcome back to part 2 of our
review of the ATSA conference, this week myself and David Prescott will discuss
some of the material that we think might be of interest to the wider SAJRT
community.

An area of research that I
(Kieran) have been involved in for a while is SORN, particularly the public
notification aspect of it, and as such I attended a session looking at
preliminary data from a National Institute of Justice funded study looking at
law enforcement attitudes to it (Jill
Levenson, Andy Harris & Chris Lobanov-Rostovsky). The data that was
discussed was based on approximately 100 interviews with law enforcement
officers across four states (California, Massachusetts, Florida & Colorado)
each with a different approach to sex offender registration and notification.
The preliminary data indicates that law enforcement believes that registration
can have its benefits in enabling them to do their job effectively but that the
data and the computer systems being used currently are problematic, unhelpful
and do not map together well. In addition, it was felt that in the main the
majority of sex offenders complied with their registration requirements and
when they did not it was not necessarily a purposive breach indicating a return
to offending, but rather individual human error and/or carelessness. The
authors will be discussing this research again in a more expanded fashion over
the next couple of years and it will be interesting to see what else it brings
to light. (KM)

One of the benefits of this
structure of ATSA this year (i.e., that there was only one plenary on the
Thursday and Friday morning) was that there were more research, as well as
treatment, papers to attend and often times these papers where allowed more
space for discussion. I attended a session on the health and social cost of
prevention and heard two radically different papers, one on the cost of sexual
abuse in the UK (Carol McNaughton
Nicholls) and one on trauma informed treatment (Liam Marshall). At first these two papers may seem to be poles
apart but in reality they talked to the same pertinent issue, which the
negative impact is being a victim of sexual abuse has you individually and how
this impacts your future mental, physical as well as emotional health. Both
papers talked to the importance of recognizing abuse early on people’s lives
and intervening to prevent it from continuing as well as enabling the victim to
start the healing process before the abuse severely impacts their long term
development. In addition the two papers, but particularly McNaughton Nicholls,
talked about the inter-relationship between different types of vulnerability
and being a victim of abuse suggesting that we could maximize the limited
resources that we have in a more effective interrelated approach. (KM)

The past two decades have seen
dramatic changes to our understanding of psychopathy. With the first waves of
higher-quality research, concerns emerged about whether or not treatment had
any effect on criminal re-offense, or whether it would actually make matters
worse. A study by Seto and Barbaree (1999) came to prominent international
attention, suggesting that treatment could make matters worse. A follow-up
investigation by the same authors with Calvin Langton using more sophisticated
techniques, a longer follow-up, and expanded sample found less reason for alarm
and yet did not garner the same amount of attention. At around the same time,
many professionals became concerned that the marketing efforts of measures of
psychopathy were outpacing the actual accumulation of knowledge, and that
extending the construct to juveniles could do more harm than good. This year, Paul Frick, Michael Caldwell, and Mark Olver offered fascinating
perspectives on people with high levels of psychopathic traits across the
lifespan. (DP)

An entertaining presenter, Paul Frick summarized years of research
on callous/unemotional traits in children. He noted that although response to
treatment can be a challenge among these children, reward-oriented parenting
approaches, cognitive-behavioral treatment, and interventions targeting social
skills appear to be promising. Michael
Caldwell then described the treatment of adolescents with high levels of
psychopathic traits at the Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center in Madison,
Wisconsin. Caldwell’s research in this area has been compelling, with
significant reductions in violence. Finally, Mark Olver presented the current state of research on the treatment
of adults who score high on the PCL-R and concluded that there is currently no
evidence that appropriate
correctional treatment makes psychopathic offenders worse, that risk reduction
assessed during treatment is linked to reduced sexual and violent recidivism,
and that risk reductions can be found among offenders with significant
psychopathic traits. (DP)

The findings of each of these
presenters are important for a number of reasons. The first is that there is
increased reason for optimism that the right treatment can work under the right
conditions for even the most challenging of clients in treatment. While much
more research is needed, Frick, Caldwell, and Olver have certainly added to our
knowledge and practice. (DP)

This completes the SAJRT brief
review of the ATSA conference. This review is by no means comprehensive or
extensive so please have a look at the conference brochure on the ATSA website
to see what some of the other interesting and informative papers were.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

The ATSA conference has come to a close for another year, thank you San Diego and we are looking forward to Montreal next year. We (that is Jon, David and myself) thought that we would reflect upon the conference and highlight some of the interesting sessions and papers that were presented, for the benefit of those could and could not make the conference…

Jesse Bering opened the conference on Thursday morning with a plenary session that was as provocative as the title: Does Lust Make Us Stupid? The Effects of Sexual Arousal on Decision Making. Bering is the author of Perv, the Sexual Deviant in All of Us. Bering presented an extensive literature review that suggests, as one might suspect, that lust does indeed make us stupid. Again, not surprisingly, it appears that males are more lustful, and “stupid,” than females. Bering suggested that significant “lustful differences” between genders have biological and evolutionary explanations. He also explained how social rules for interpersonal sexual behaviors, with historical and cultural roots, are constantly evolving. Despite efforts, beginning with Kinsey, to understand the range of human sexual behaviors, we don’t have sufficient research to know what variants of sexual arousal are truly within the range of “normal.” In contrast, Bering offered compelling illustrations for how our knowledge of deviant sexual behaviors is little more than anecdotal. Bering’s presentation was a captivating, if not unsettling, sequel to last year’s keynote by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, on A Billion Wicked Thoughts – what the Internet tells us about sexual behavior and relationships. (JB)

On the Thursday evening there was a special interest group session by Berkley Media Studies Group on their NSVRC/ATSA backed study examining the representations of sexual abuse and sex offenders in the media. Their findings, so far, are that the media typically frames sexual offenders as predominantly a monster narrative that is mainly reactionary, criminal justice orientated and negative. They suggested that we need to reframe our sexual violence narrative in terms of prevention and bring that to the media in order to enable them to reframe the conversation. There was also a discussion of the changing sites of media engagement with blogs, twitter and social networking needing to be used more effectively. In addition, there was a discussion of how long-running stories could be utilized to change the conversation, so the 3rd or 4th day story could be about prevention rather than trying to get in on the page on day one. Finally, there was a conversation about how we should be more strategic in talking with the media, both in terms of talking to them where they live (their conferences, at media “camps” at big stories) and bringing them to where we live (having the media representative on boards being a journalist). (KM)

If anyone has not attended a recent workshop by Phil Rich, they might not be up-to-speed on the latest research and best practices for the treatment of adolescents who have sexually offended. I once asked Phil how he keeps up with the literature, which he seems to devour. He replied that he’s driven by the constant concern that there might be some breaking research that he should be aware of. Phil presented three different workshops at ATSA; one, as a co-presenter, on neurodevelopmental research, and two solo: A Contemporary Approach to the Treatment of Sexually Abusive Youth: A Relational Approach, and The Role of Case Formulation in the Treatment of Sexually Abusive Behavior. Every workshop that Phil presents is a densely-packed compendium of the latest research applied to best practices. Phil also draws on his extensive experience in the field, to account for all the moving parts of effective treatment. When Phil presents, the only thing that moves faster than his Powerpoint slides is his mind. Phil offers so much content in his presentations that many attendees can’t take notes fast enough. Those who know that his Powerpoint handouts contain most of the content, can spend more time trying to absorb the wealth of wisdom. (JB)

On the Friday afternoon there was a CoSA panel (Ian Elliott, Kathy Fox, Andrew McWhinnie & Robin Wilson) which updated us on where Circles of Support and Accountability research was currently at across the USA as well as Canada. The panel indicated that CoSA was developing numerous programs across the USA and that, despite small local statewide differences to implementation, that there was capacity for USA wide evaluation, with data from some states (especially Vermont) that CoSA was assisting sex offenders to desist as well as increase their levels of community engagement. The session highlighted the capacity building in respect to CoSA nationally and internationally, with a number of international researchers talking about ongoing evaluations and evidenced-based work in their areas. (KM)

Friday, October 24, 2014

It is almost Halloween, and as
we begin to feel a chill in the air in the northern hemisphere, we also feel
the excitement of that annual ritual of trick or treating. But while children
look forward to a night of ghouls, ghosts, goblins and goodies, parents ponder
the presence of real-life demons in the neighborhood: registered sex offenders.
States, municipalities, and parole departments have adopted policies banning
known sex offenders from Halloween activities (or, in some jurisdictions, from
even leaving their homes on Halloween), based on the concern that they pose an
increased risk to children on this day. So, my colleagues and I (Chaffin, Levenson, Letourneau, & Stern, 2009)
set out to test this assumption…

Using national incident-based
reporting system (NIBRS) crime report data from 1997 through 2005, we examined 67,045
non-familial sex crimes against children age 12 and younger.Halloween rates were compared to expectations
based on time, seasonality and weekday periodicity.There were no significant increases in sex
crimes on or around Halloween, and Halloween incidents did not demonstrate
unusual case characteristics. Findings did not vary in the years prior to and
after these policies became popular.If these policies were to have an effect on
overall Halloween victimization, we would expect that the rates of offenses on
Halloween would show a greater decline over time relative to the rates for
other days.In order to test whether
there may have been greater reductions in sex offense rates on Halloween
relative to other days over the nine-year span, a year-by-Halloween interaction
term was added to the model.No
statistically significant differences were found.

We then examined over 5 million crimes
that took place in 30 states on or around Halloween in 2005.The most common types of crime on Halloween
and adjacent days were theft (32%), destruction or vandalism of property (21%),
assault (19%) and burglary (9%).Vandalism and property destruction accounted for a greater proportion of
crime around Halloween compared to other days of the year (21% vs. 14% of all
reports).Sex crimes of all types
accounted for slightly over 1% of all Halloween crime. Non-familial sex crimes
against children age 12 and under accounted for less than .2% (2 out of every
thousand crimes) of all Halloween crime incidents.

Other risks to children are much
more salient on Halloween. According to the Center for Disease Control,
children ages 5 to 14 are four times more likely to be killed by a
pedestrian/motor-vehicle accident on Halloween than on any other day of the
year.These findings call into question
the justification for diverting law enforcement resources away from more
prevalent public safety concerns on Halloween.

Some scholars have opined that
sex offender policies are designed to accomplish both instrumental and symbolic
objectives, and that understanding both is essential in the continuing dialogue
about SORN laws and prevention of sexual violence (Sample, Evans, & Anderson, 2011).
Policy enactment can serve to inspire and reinforce social solidarity by
uniting against a common enemy (Roots, 2004). Sex
offender laws send a clear message that sexual victimization will not be
tolerated and that politicians are willing to address public safety concerns (Sample, et al., 2011; Sample & Kadleck, 2008).Sample et al. (2011) speculated that symbolic
policies might achieve instrumental effects over time -- perhaps measured by a
wider range of outcomes beyond recidivism -- but that in the cost/benefit
analysis, the symbolic expression of zero tolerance for sexual violence will
always outweigh offender rights, fiscal considerations, and empirical
testing.

But policy analysis requires a
continuous process of evaluation that measures progress toward intended goals
as well as unanticipated consequences that might prove contrary to the best
interests of the community. Levenson and D'Amora (2007) asserted
that ignoring evidence is similar to Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Emperor's New Clothesin which the king paraded around town nude,
fooled into wearing invisible clothes that purportedly could be seen by only an
enlightened few. Similarly, in the absence of compelling evidence indicating
that these policies reduce sexual reoffending, attention should be paid to
mounting proof of reintegration obstacles fostered by these laws.

Lest some critics suggest that
by pointing out the limitations of these laws I am demonstrating a lack of
concern for the safety of children, I'd argue that we are all on the same side.
We all want to live in safer communities and I agree that public awareness
generated by these laws has led to important dialogue about intolerance of
sexual violence. But as tax-paying citizens, don't we also want our resources
to be utilized in ways that are most likely to achieve the expected goals? And
don't social scientists have an obligation to help inform strategies designed
to enhance the public good?

Enactment of social policies
should consider scientific evidence, and policies are most likely to be
successful when they incorporate research findings into their development and
implementation. A more reasoned approach (Tabachnick & Klein, 2011) to
sex offender policies would utilize empirically derived risk assessment tools
to create classification systems that target more aggressive monitoring and tighter
restrictions toward those who pose the greatest threat to public safety. In
this way, laws could more effectively identify and manage higher-risk offenders
within a more cost-efficient allocation of resources. As well, the collateral
consequences of community protection policies could be minimized and sex
offenders could be better enabled to engage in a law-abiding and prosocial
lifestyle. Most sex offenders will ultimately be returned to the community, and
when they are, it behooves us to facilitate reintegrative strategies that rely
on empirical research to inform community protection. In fact, the unintended
consequences of these laws might undermine their very purpose. After all, when
people have nothing to lose, they begin to behave accordingly.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Sexual abuse is a complex and emotional public health issue that
impacts everyone – individuals, communities, institutions, and society as a
whole. Despite this reality, sexual abuse remains a difficult topic for open
discussion and the complexities of sexual abuse are often not reflected by
public opinion. This is understandable when we recognize that our perceptions
are often influenced by the way sexual abuse, sexual abusers, and survivors are
portrayed in films, on television, and in the popular media – too often a one
dimensional and sensationalized, rather than factual, presentation. If our goal
is to prevent sexual abuse and ensure there are no more victims, it is essential
that the public become engaged and educated about sexual abuse, those who
perpetrate sexual abuse, and strategies to prevent sexual abuse.

Studies have shown that reported offending has decreased for all
types of crimes over the past 20 years and this is also true for sexual
offending, both in the United States (Finklehor, 2004; Lauritsen & Rezey,
2013) and the United Kingdom (Crime
statistics for England and Wales, 2013/14). Research on sexual abuse within
the criminal justice and psychology fields has also vastly progressed over the
past 30 years (Wilson & Prescott, 2014; Marshall, 2011) and we now know
more about those who perpetrate sexual abuse, their motivations, etiology and rehabilitation
than ever before (ATSA, 2014; Wilson & Prescott, 2014; Carter, 2014). We
also have more clearly defined laws and evidence-based criminal justice
approaches for the management of individuals convicted of sexual crimes than
ever before (CSOM, 2008; Kemshall & McCartan, 2014), as well as a greater
understanding of innovative reintegration strategies that promote public safety,
including community-based strategies such as Circles of Support
& Accountability. We are even starting to see the traditional media
reporting on sexual abuse in a more balanced, realistic, and engaged manner.

Despite these positive changes towards greater community engagement
and understanding, improved victim services, and more effective treatment
models, the most common attitude of the general public continues to be that
nothing works for “sex offenders.” (McCartan, 2004, 2010, 2013; McCartan,
Kemshall & Hudson, 2012). This is the greater paradox within our field, as
well as criminology/criminal justice in general – public perceptions do not coincide
or reflect professional experiences, or what the research tells us about the
reality of the situation.

This divergence between public attitudes and understanding versus the
realities of sexual abuse is fuelled in part by myths created through
stereotyping, miscommunication, prejudice, active disengagement, and poor
professional interaction – all factors which speak to the need for greater
public engagement and understanding about sexual abuse in order to facilitate
prevention and safer communities. Public engagement is important for a number
of reasons, including;

·Community and self-protection: By better
understanding the aetiology, behaviours, offence patterns, criminal justice
responses and treatment models related to sexually abusive behavior,
individuals are better prepared to protect themselves and others. Therefore
education and understanding is a self-defense mechanism, as well as an integral
component to creating a culture of non-acceptance of sexual abuse which
promotes prevention (e.g., bystander
intervention programmes).

·Supporting appropriate responses to sexual abuse: The appropriate response to sexual abuse, like any crime or case of
neglect, is to report it to the appropriate authorities so that they can
respond to it. It is not to take the law into your own hands (McCartan, 2010;
Vigilante hunter case, Daily
mail, Independent;
Haas, 2010) or too ignore the issue. By better understanding what the reality
of sexual abuse is, what the authorities do (and why they do it in that way),
and how sexual offense specific treatment and management works, the public is better equipped to make informed
decisions, as opposed to uninformed ones.

·Dispelling miscommunications and rectifying myths: Sexual abuse has a lot of associated myths, whether these are rape
myths, victim blaming, myths about who commits child sexual abuse, or the
impact of abuse depending on the gender/age/ethnicity/cognitive ability of the
offender or victim. These myths help no one and actually often compromise,
rather than promote, public safety. By greater engagement with individuals and communities,
through better education programmes and through more realistic media engagement,
we can dispel these myths. While this may be a difficult task due to many of
these myths being hardwired into our personal and cultural psyche, by
dispelling these myths we can facilitate recognition of sexual abuse for the
complex public health issue that it is and move forward towards a culture of
prevention.

·Influencing public policy and agenda setting: Public opinion shapes governmental policy and practice, from emotionally
driven knee jerk responses to in-depth social change. This means that public
opinion is vital beyond a social dialogue as it feeds into legislative and
political agenda setting. A more engaged public results in a greater understanding
of the reality of sexual abuse and the complexities of responding to these
issues and this, in turn, leads us to a more informed and realistic
sociological debate. It also results in the public campaigning for evidence
based policies and laws that are both preventative and responsive, public
health oriented as well as criminal justice oriented, and forward thinking
rather than reactionary.

While the prevention of sexual abuse may feel like a never ending
task, we have come far over the past 30 years in not only our understanding of
sexual abuse, but in our support of survivors, management of perpetrators, and
prevention efforts. But our work is far from done and public engagement is key
to continuing forward – although the prevention of sexual abuse requires a
well-planned and comprehensive response founded on research, it is only through
education, collaboration, and the involvement of everyone – community members,
violence prevention professionals, victim advocates, law enforcement
professionals, treatment professionals, journalists, and policy makers – that
the prevention of sexual abuse can become a reality.

Kieran McCartan, PhD

Chief Blogger

David Prescott, LICSW

Associate blogger

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The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (http://atsa.com/) is an international, multi-disciplinary organization dedicated to preventing sexual abuse. Through research, education, and shared learning ATSA promotes evidence based practice, public policy and community strategies that lead to the effective assessment, treatment and management of individuals who have sexually abused or are risk to abuse.

The views expressed on this blog are of the bloggers and are not necessarily those of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research & Treatment, or Sage Journals.

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